by Michael Kerr
Matt took the steaming mug, placed it on a raffia coaster on Tom’s desk and asked, “How softly does the brass want us to tiptoe with this? I’m not a political animal, but I can see that questioning some of the johns’ listed in Marsha’s book will cause a shitstorm.”
“Fuck ’em. You reap what you sow. They should have thought about the possible consequences before they courted scandal by paying to dip their wicks away from home. Just try a little diplomacy with anyone who has enough clout to hold a grudge and do us a bad turn down the road.”
“Are you telling me to―?”
“I’m not telling you anything. Do whatever it takes to wrap the case. Don’t back off anyone who you think is implicated. All I’m saying is, do it by the numbers. Make sure that all the paperwork is in order, and that your arse is bullet-proof.”
“There’s a more than even chance that whoever did it took the page his name was on, and another couple of sheets behind it in case the impression of a pen was left. All the entries on the other pages are in ballpoint. That’s if the book has any bearing on the case at all.”
Tom drained his mug and stood up. “Keep me up to speed. There’s a lot of pressure from the top floor on this. I don’t like being under the spotlight.”
Matt got up and headed for the door. “If you can’t take the heat...” he said without turning.
“Get the fuck out of my kitchen,” Tom replied to his back.
CHAPTER FOUR
It was a little after seven o’clock in the evening when she took the lift down to the marble-floored foyer and walked across it and out through the revolving doors to the street. Night had fallen, but the electric glow of the city repelled the darkness. She took a deep breath of the cold air and made to hail a cab. She was totally oblivious to the figure who was approaching her, his steps quickening as he rushed by her to turn and block her path.
“You got a dollar for a veteran who gave his arm for this great country?” He rasped.
Beth took a step back and half turned her face away from the stream of breath that misted the air and reeked of cheap liquor. The man gave her a lopsided, toothless smile and scratched at his grey beard with nicotine-coated fingers as she fought to regain her composure.
“Hey, Harry, get the hell outta here,” the burly uniformed commissionaire shouted, leaving his post by the hotel door and advancing on the vagrant who had accosted Beth.
“God bless you,” the old guy said to Beth in the way he would have said ‘get cancer and die’ to a cop who was throwing him in a drunk tank, or moving him off a bench in Central Park.
“Thank you,” Beth said to the doorman as ‘Harry’ lurched away along the sidewalk and into the nearest alley, to be absorbed by the blackness that filled the narrow gaps between Manhattan’s towering buildings.
“You’re welcome, lady. You want I should get you a cab?”
She nodded, and with only a slight motion of his white-gloved hand, one of the glut of Yellow cabs peeled off, angled across to the kerb and stopped.
It was only a few blocks to the Wellington Hotel, which was located across the street from Carnegie Hall in Midtown. She paid the cabby and hurried into what she perceived to be the safety of the hotel, collected her key from the front desk and made her way to the lifts. Up in her room on the fifth floor, with the door securely locked, she collapsed on the bed and let the tears fall. It was an amalgamation of pent-up emotions and suppressed fear that was now demanding to be acknowledged; to be confronted and dealt with.
“Fuck it!” Beth said to the empty room. Got up, snatched a handful of tissues from the box on the bedside table and blew her nose. She was acting like a victim who could not get past the tribulations she had faced and survived. Instead of being strengthened by triumph over adversity, she was letting the accumulation of recent events jaundice her outlook and modify her thoughts in a morbid and unacceptable way. For Christ’s sake, she was a psychologist who dealt with criminally insane patients on a daily basis. She should be better equipped to come to terms with the acts they committed than most. But she had come to learn – the hard way – that interviewing and assessing sociopaths and the like was not the same as being targeted and victimised by them. Being on the consult list with New Scotland Yard had given her the opportunity to test out her skills of recognising personality disorders, develop profiles with critical offender characteristics, and offer up investigative suggestions to the police. She had excelled at being able to get into the minds of monsters, and as a result had got too close to the evil. She still bore the scars, courtesy of working alongside Matt and being reluctantly sucked into a world of horror and violence.
Beth looked at the phone next to the box of Kleenex. No. This week in New York was a hiatus; a period that she needed to use, to stand back and reflect on and assess just where the hell in life she was headed, and whether she wanted to go there. Loving Matt was not the issue. But she did not have his ability to crusade against that which he thought had to be faced and overcome. Maybe he fed off violence and death, and being a part of it was a drug that he was powerless to wean himself off. It sucked. Damn the man! Why didn’t he ring her? He knew where she was staying, and that she would now be back from The Roosevelt, where the seminar had been held in a conference room on the first floor…or second, as the Yanks would have it.
The phone did ring. Startled her. She picked up.
“Matt?”
“No, ma’am, this is the switchboard. I have a Mr...er, Dr. Alec Hoffman wanting to speak to you. You want to take the call?”
“Uh, yes, please, put him through,” Beth said.
Why would Alec be calling? It was only forty minutes since she had said goodnight to him at the Roosevelt.
“Beth?”
“Yes, Alec.”
“How long have we known each other?”
“Over nine years. What does that have to do with the price of bagels?”
“Absolutely nothing. It’s just I couldn’t help but notice that you were distracted today. Tell me it’s none of my business, but I have the feeling that you are trying to deal with some sort of inner crisis, Beth.”
“It’s none of your business, Alec. I’m not a patient, and I don’t need a session on your couch.”
“You’re a friend, Beth. And I don’t use a couch these days. Too many patients went to sleep on me.”
“That’s because you answered all their questions with, ‘What do you think?’. They got sick of talking to themselves and nodded off.”
“Probably true. But to get back to you. Rather than watch cable and order a club sandwich and coffee, meet me downstairs in the bar for a drink. I promise not to make it an inquisition.”
Beth had no conscious intention to agree to meet Alec. She was annoyed that he was spot-on in his assumption that she would watch TV. She had planned on showering, ordering room service and laying back on the king-size bed with an old movie for company.
“What time?” She asked.
“How does now sound. I’m already starting in on my first vodka martini.”
“You’re here in the hotel?”
“Yeah. Nothing ventured...”
“Give me twenty minutes to freshen up,” she said and cradled the phone.
It was three a.m. when Matt threw the duvet back and got out of bed. The case and Beth were getting to him, filling his mind to a point where it was a buzzing hive of activity that could not close down and escape in sleep. He pulled on his robe and padded downstairs barefoot to switch on the coffee maker. They had eliminated one suspect the previous day, and had a result on the small head-shaped bruise found on Marsha Freeman’s face. The baggage handler, Norman Sharp, had the perfect alibi. He was as dead as the young hooker he’d dropped his pants for. The strain and shame of being lifted for kerb-crawling, and the initial interview/interrogation conducted by less than sympathetic vice squad cops had taken its toll. He had suffered a major cardiac infarction while dumping luggage onto the conveyor belt at Terminal 2, to collaps
e onto it and be smoothly transported through the flaps, to begin a circuit of the carousel, still holding a suitcase by its handle in a death grip.
The blowups that the crime lab produced were on the money. What might have usually taken them days to send up from the basement warren took only hours to hit Matt’s desk. Every department concerned was being leaned on by the top floor to clear the case. Matt poured the coffee, went through to the lounge and opened up his battered briefcase to withdraw the manila envelope that held a sheaf of 8x10 colour photographs. He fanned them out on the coffee table and looked at them for the tenth time, trying to see more than was portrayed.
The first he picked up was of the facial bruise. It almost filled the shot, with just a border of less contused skin. Even fine downy hairs and the texture and blemishes that were not apparent to the naked eye without magnification, could be seen.
‘Looks like a wolf to me, what’s your guess?’ was the one-liner scrawled on the Post-it affixed to the back of the print.
The chief technician, Maurice Clewes – inappropriately tagged with the sobriquet of ‘Clueless’ – was always quick to offer his personal view on any obscure piece of evidence. He was in the majority of cases right in his evaluation. A fact not lost on Matt, who respected and always took notice of what Maurice had to say.
Yes, the shape of the face; the darker area where the more pronounced muzzle would have punched into the skin, and the unmistakable outline of canine ears. Matt also chose to believe that the image left by the ring might be that of a wolf. It was graphic evidence; a hard clue that could tie the killer to at least striking Marsha, if not being her murderer. Though Matt had no doubt whatsoever that the two acts were carried out by one and the same person. He felt tension in his gut. Knew that the killer had made a mistake that might lead to his downfall. If they were lucky, then they would turn up a former client or associate of Marsha’s who wore a wolf head ring, and it would be the case-breaker. Another facet of Matt’s mind simultaneously acknowledged that in many instances it didn’t pan out that way. He believed that the killer would be a stranger to his victims. He pulled a spiral-bound notepad from the briefcase, spent a couple more minutes searching for a pencil, found a blunt one in a bureau drawer and sharpened it with an old Swiss army knife that had belonged to his father. With his coffee mug refilled, he began to write down what came to mind as being pertinent to him, as he studied the autopsy report on Kelly Lindon:
VICTIM 1. KELLY LINDON. AGE 16. PROSTITUTE.
5 FT TALL. REDHEAD.
BEATEN AND SUBJECTED TO TORTURE.
IN ALL, 106 CIGARETTE BURNS TO EARLOBES/
BREASTS/ STOMACH/ BUTTOCKS AND LABIA.
STRANGLED WITH TIGHTS. NOT HERS.
CONDOM LUBRICANT RETRIEVED.
WAS KELLY RAPED?
HAD INTERCOURSE TAKEN PLACE WITH
OFFENDER/PUNTER?
BODY NOT POSED. NO PHYSICAL TROPHY TAKEN.
UNKNOWN SUBJECT ORGANISED AND LEAVES NO TRACE
EVIDENCE. MOTIVATION IS ANGER. THE VICTIM
IS A SUBSTITUTE FOR THE WOMAN WHO HE
HATES AND CANNOT PUNISH.
Matt dropped the pencil on the pad and picked up the print showing the facial bruising to Kelly’s face. Looked for any sign of the wolf’s head, but could not pick it out on the mottled skin. Needed an enlargement, or did he? He once more went across to the bureau, opened the draw below the hinged drop-leaf and found what he wanted under a jumble of old paid bills and car and house insurance policies. He would have a clear out, or buy a home file, sometime. The magnifying glass was large and heavy and covered by years of dust that had begrimed it like a dirty window. He lifted the bottom of his robe to wipe it with before sitting on the edge of the chair and hunching over the photograph. Knowing what he was looking for made it relatively easy to pick out the shape. It was indistinct, only a partial impression of the emblematic clue that proved beyond all doubt that both victims had been struck in the face by the same clenched fist. The killer was unknowingly leaving his individual mark; stamping his prey with a symbol that was uncommon and could be used in evidence against him.
PARTIAL ANIMAL/WOLF HEAD IMPRESSION ON LEFT CHEEKBONE, he wrote and then underlined before flipping to the next page and heading it:
VICTIM 2. MARSHA FREEMAN AKA TRUDI JAMESON
AGE 28. REDHEAD, 5’ 9”
PROSTITUTE.
SAME MO USED AS ON VICTIM 1.
AUTOPSY REPORT TO FOLLOW.
VICTIM 2 ABDUCTED AND TAKEN TO
LOCATION WHERE SHE WAS
TORTURED AT LENGTH, THEN
MURDERED.
Matt paused and let the facts to date settle out. He believed that the unknown subject they sought was not known to either victim. He allowed the shadowy form of an individual take shape in his mind, and decided that the man’s crimes had been triggered by personal abuse that he had suffered. He had the overwhelming need to kill prostitutes with red hair. That was the bottom line. The compulsion that drove him would escalate. It always did with homicidal psychos who’d started up. Matt had learned a lot from Beth. Profiling was not magical or beyond his capability to employ. He had attended courses on it and had a wealth of experience in locking horns with wackos that were driven to kill, and worse. They were predictable, in that they could not stop, fixated on a certain category of intended prey, and followed set and almost ritual rules of engagement. This killer fit the criteria. He was confident in being able to quickly overpower and transfer his victim into a vehicle. He would be physically strong and fit. Would no doubt be young, and white. It was almost a given that serial killers selected victims of their own race. What would Beth say? ‘Behaviour reflects personality’. That was a profiler’s credo, and in this case pointed to the killer he sought being a sadistic, ruthless piece of work that floated his boat by causing maximum suffering to women of a specific type.
CHAPTER FIVE
He came out of a doze, shivering. It was almost five a.m. Beth was on his mind. He closed his mind to the case for a while. It was midnight across the pond. Maybe she was asleep. He went into the kitchen and stared at the wall-mounted phone. He needed to hear her voice. If he woke her up, then he would apologise. He had written the number of the Wellington Hotel on the calendar that hung on a nail next to the phone.
“Wellington Hotel. How may I help you?” A strong New York accent.
“I’d like to speak to a guest. Ms. Elizabeth Holder. She’s in room 519.”
“May I have your name, sir?”
“Barnes. Matt Barnes.”
“Just one moment, sir.”
Matt held for over thirty seconds.
“Sorry, sir. There’s no reply. You want to leave a message?”
“Uh, no thanks,” he said and hung up.
His spirits fell. Where the hell would she be at this time of night? Was she okay? She was a light sleeper, so would have been woken by the phone ringing. There were lots of reasons for her being out. Maybe she had taken in a show on Broadway, then gone for a meal. Could have even been in the shower and not heard the phone. He shrugged. He would try again the following evening. Regretted not having left a message, but didn’t ring back.
There was little point in going back to bed. His mind was too busy to entertain sleep. He reviewed the previous day. Once the team had been given their assignments, he and Pete had driven over to the address in Pimlico that had been on Marsha’s driving licence and other documents found in her bag. They also had a bunch of keys, but searched out the duty manager of the building.
At this stage in the investigation, everyone who had known Marsha was a suspect. But Matt had looked down at the man who introduced himself as Graham Sumner and as good as ruled him out of the running there and then. He lowered his arm so that the dwarf could get a proper look at the warrant card he held. The little guy looked very much like Kenny Baker, the actor who had found fame stuck in a tin can and presumably sweating his bollocks off playing the universally known role as the robot, R2-D2.
“What brings the police here?” Graham asked in a deep baritone voice that belied his physical stature.
“Murder, Mr Sumner,” Matt replied. “One of your residents got herself strangled during the night. We need to take a look around her apartment.”
“M...Murder! Someone was killed here?” Graham stammered.
“Not here, sir,” Pete said. “But this is where we believe she lived.”
Graham licked his lips and blinked repeatedly. “Who are we talking about?”
“Marsha Freeman,” Matt said. “When did you last see her, Mr. Sumner?”
“Er, maybe three or four days ago. I’m not sure. The residents keep to themselves for the most part.”
“Did Marsha have many visitors?” Pete asked.
“You mean, men?”
“That’s not what I said. Why would I mean men?”
“She was famous at one time, you know. A top model. And she has...had a lot of well-to-do admirers.”
“You’re saying that she had a lot of male callers?”
“I’m not saying anything. I don’t make judgements. I mind my own business.”
“So take us to her apartment, Mr. Sumner,” Matt said, turning and walking over to the nearest of the two lift doors.
“Do you want me to show you around?” Graham said when they reached the sixth floor and he had led them to the door of Marsha’s apartment and stood on tiptoe to unlock the Yale.
“Thanks, but that won’t be necessary,” Pete said. “You can get back to minding your own business, sir.”
Pete watched the manager retrace his steps, stretch to hit the call button, then board the lift. When he heard it start its descent, he nodded to Matt and they pulled cellophane gloves on before entering the well-appointed and luxuriously furnished apartment.
“I’ll start in here,” Matt said, looking around the expansive lounge. “You find the master bedroom.”